1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of manufacture of flat panel display (FPD), and in particular to an apparatus and a method for laminating an anisotropic conductive film (ACF) on a flat display panel.
2. The Related Arts
A flat panel display has advantages, such as thin device body and reduced power consumption, and is widely used. Flat panel displays that are currently available generally include liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and organic light emitting displays (OLEDs).
The LCDs have a variety of advantages, such as thin device body, low power consumption, and being free of radiation, and are thus widely used. Most of the LCDs that are currently available in the market are backlighting LCDs, which comprise an enclosure, a liquid crystal panel arranged in the enclosure, and a backlight module that is arranged in the enclosure. The operation principle of the liquid crystal panel is that, with liquid crystal molecules interposed between two parallel glass substrates, application of electricity is selectively carried out to control the liquid crystal molecules to change direction in order to refract out light emitting from the backlight module for generating images.
The OLEDs, which show the characteristics of self-illumination, high brightness, wide view angle, high contrast, flexibility, and low energy consumption, attract wide attention for serving as the next-generation display measures that gradually substitute the conventional liquid crystal display devices for applications in mobile phone screens, computer monitors, and full-color television.
During assembling, flat display panels of these flat panel displays require installing a drive IC on a circumferential margin of the flat display panels and connecting devices, such as components, which are formed by using a flexible circuit board to serve as a carrier for a packaged chip for bonding and connecting the chip and the flexible circuit board together, and flexible printed circuits, to the circumferential margin of the flat display panel. Installation and connection of these devices are generally achieved by means of connection with an anisotropic conductive film.
As one of the processes in assembling a flat panel display, attaching an ACF to a flat display panel requires to have the ACF cut first and then laminated to a corresponding site on the flat display panel.
Referring to FIG. 1, which is a schematic view illustrating an apparatus for laminating an ACF, the ACF 100 comprises a film body and a release sheet attached to the film body. The ACF 100 is mounted on a feeding device 300. The ACF 100 is moved sequentially through a cutting device 500 and a pressing device 700 toward a collection device 900. When the ACF 100 passes through the cutting device 500, the cutting device 500 carries out a first cutting operation on the film body of the ACF 100 and when the ACF 100 advances to reach a predetermined location, the cutting device 500 carries out a second cutting operation on the film body of the ACF 100, whereby the two cutting operations cut off the ACF 100 to form an ACF body to be laminated. When the ACF body to be laminated reaches a predetermined operation site of the pressing device 700, the pressing device 700 presses the ACF body to be laminated onto a substrate 750 to complete a lamination process of ACF.
The cutting device that is currently used is generally a stainless cutter driven by a pneumatic cylinder. However, in the mechanical way of cutting an anisotropic conductive film with a stainless steel cutter that is controlled and driven by a pneumatic cylinder, the process of operation thereof suffers impreciseness of cutting, blunting of cutter, attaching of residual adhesive of the anisotropic conductive film to the cutter, leading to the occurrence of poor lamination of the anisotropic conductive film so as to result in an increase of manufacture cost, which is disadvantageous for cost control.